Books: Kim

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'And I cannot see any need why he should wait,' said Bennett,
feeling in his trouser-pocket. 'We can investigate the details
later - and I will give him a ru -'

'Give him time. Maybe he's fond of the lad,' said Father Victor,
half arresting the clergyman's motion.

The lama dragged forth his rosary and pulled his huge hat-brim over
his eyes.

'What can he want now?'

'He says' - Kim put up one hand. 'He says: Be quiett.' He wants to
speak to me by himself You see, you do not know one little word of
what he says, and I think if you talk he will perhaps give you very
bad curses. When he takes those beads like that, you see, he always
wants to be quiett.'

The two Englishmen sat overwhelmed, but there was a look in
Bennett's eye that promised ill for Kim when he should be relaxed
to the religious arm.

'A Sahib and the son of a Sahib -' The lama's voice was harsh with
pain. 'But no white man knows the land and the customs of the land
as thou knowest. How comes it this is true?'

'What matter, Holy One? - but remember it is only for a night or
two. Remember, I can change swiftly. It will all be as it was when
I first spoke to thee under Zam-Zammah the great gun -'

'As a boy in the dress of white men - when I first went to the
Wonder House. And a second time thou wast a Hindu. What shall the
third incarnation be?' He chuckled drearily. 'Ah, chela, thou has
done a wrong to an old man because my heart went out to thee.'

'And mine to thee. But how could I know that the Red Bull would
bring me to this business?'

The lama covered his face afresh, and nervously rattled the rosary.
Kim squatted beside him and laid hold upon a fold of his clothing.

'Now it is understood that the boy is a Sahib?' he went on in a
muffled tone. 'Such a Sahib as was he who kept the images in the
Wonder House.' The lama's experience of white men was limited. He
seemed to be repeating a lesson. 'So then it is not seemly that he
should do other than as the Sahibs do. He must go back to his own
people.'

'For a day and a night and a day,' Kim pleaded.

'No, ye don't!' Father Victor saw Kim edging towards the door, and
interposed a strong leg.

'I do not understand the customs of white men. The Priest of the
Images in the Wonder House in Lahore was more courteous than the
thin one here. This boy will be taken from me. They will make a
Sahib of my disciple? Woe to me! How shall I find my River? Have
they no disciples? Ask.'

'He says he is very sorree that he cannot find the River now any
more. He says, Why have you no disciples, and stop bothering him?
He wants to be washed of his sins.'

Neither Bennett nor Father Victor found any answer ready.

Said Kim in English, distressed for the lama's agony: 'I think if
you will let me go now we will walk away quietly and not steal. We
will look for that River like before I was caught. I wish I did not
come here to find the Red Bull and all that sort of thing. I do not
want it.'

'It's the very best day's work you ever did for yourself, young
man,' said Bennett.

'Good heavens, I don't know how to console him,' said Father
Victor, watching the lama intently. 'He can't take the boy away
with him, and yet he's a good man - I'm sure he's a good man.
Bennett, if you give him that rupee he'll curse you root and
branch!'

They listened to each other's breathing - three - five full
minutes. Then the lama raised his head, and looked forth across
them into space and emptiness.

'And I am a Follower of the Way,' he said bitterly. 'The sin is
mine and the punishment is mine. I made believe to myself for now I
see it was but make-belief - that thou wast sent to me to aid in
the Search. So my heart went out to thee for thy charity and thy
courtesy and the wisdom of thy little years. But those who follow
the Way must permit not the fire of any desire or attachment, for
that is all Illusion. As says . . .' He quoted an old, old Chinese
text, backed it with another, and reinforced these with a third. 'I
stepped aside from the Way, my chela. It was no fault of thine. I
delighted in the sight of life, the new people upon the roads, and
in thy joy at seeing these things. I was pleased with thee who
should have considered my Search and my Search alone. Now I am
sorrowful because thou art taken away and my River is far from me.
It is the Law which I have broken!'

'Powers of Darkness below!' said Father Victor, who, wise in the
confessional, heard the pain in every sentence.

'I see now that the sign of the Red Bull was a sign for me as well
as for thee. All Desire is red - and evil. I will do penance and
find my River alone.'

'At least go back to the Kulu woman,' said Kim, 'otherwise thou
wilt be lost upon the roads. She will feed thee till I run back to
thee.'

The lama waved a hand to show that the matter was finally settled
in his mind.

'Now,' - his tone altered as he turned to Kim, - 'what will they do
with thee? At least I may, acquiring merit, wipe out past ill.'

'Make me a Sahib - so they think. The day after tomorrow I return.
Do not grieve.'

'Of what sort? Such an one as this or that man?' He pointed to
Father Victor. 'Such an one as those I saw this evening men wearing
swords and stamping heavily?'

'Maybe.'

'That is not well. These men follow desire and come to emptiness.
Thou must not be of their sort.'

'The Umballa priest said that my Star was War,' Kim interjected. 'I
will ask these fools - but there is truly no need. I will run away
this night, for all I wanted to see the new things.'

Kim put two or three questions in English to Father Victor,
translating the replies to the lama.

Then: 'He says, "You take him from me and you cannot say what you
will make him." He says, "Tell me before I go, for it is not a
small thing to make a child."'

'You will be sent to a school. Later on, we shall see. Kimball, I
suppose you'd like to be a soldier?'

'Gorah-log [white-folk]. No-ah! No-ah!' Kim shook his head
violently. There was nothing in his composition to which drill and
routine appealed. 'I will not be a soldier.'

'You will be what you're told to be,' said Bennett; 'and you should
be grateful that we're going to help you.'

Kim smiled compassionately. If these men lay under the delusion
that he would do anything that he did not fancy, so much the
better.

Another long silence followed. Bennett fidgeted with impatience,
and suggested calling a sentry to evict the fakir.

'Do they give or sell learning among the Sahibs? Ask them,' said
the lama, and Kim interpreted.

'They say that money is paid to the teacher - but that money the
Regiment will give ... What need? It is only for a night.'

'And - the more money is paid the better learning is given?' The
lama disregarded Kim's plans for an early flight. 'It is no wrong
to pay for learning. To help the ignorant to wisdom is always a
merit.' The rosary clicked furiously as an abacus. Then he faced
his oppressors.

'Ask them for how much money do they give a wise and suitable
teaching? And in what city is that teaching given?'

'Well,'said Father Victor in English, when Kim had translated,
'that depends. The Regiment would pay for you all the time you are
at the Military Orphanage; or you might go on the Punjab Masonic
Orphanage's list (not that he or you 'ud understand what that
means); but the best schooling a boy can get in India is, of
course, at St Xavier's in Partibus at Lucknow.' This took some time
to interpret, for Bennett wished to cut it short.

'He wants to know how much?' said Kim placidly.

'Two or three hundred rupees a year.' Father Victor was long past
any sense of amazement. Bennett, impatient, did not understand.

'He says: "Write that name and the money upon a paper and give it
him." And he says you must write your name below, because he is
going to write a letter in some days to you. He says you are a good
man. He says the other man is a fool. He is going away.'

The lama rose suddenly. 'I follow my Search,' he cried, and was
gone.

'He'll run slap into the sentries,' cried Father Victor, jumping up
as the lama stalked out; 'but I can't leave the boy.' Kim made
swift motion to follow, but checked himself. There was no sound of
challenge outside. The lama had disappeared.

Kim settled himself composedly on the Chaplain's cot. At least the
lama had promised that he would stay with the Raiput woman from
Kulu, and the rest was of the smallest importance. It pleased him
that the two padres were so evidently excited. They talked long in
undertones, Father Victor urging some scheme on Mr Bennett, who
seemed incredulous. All this was very new and fascinating, but Kim
felt sleepy. They called men into the tent - one of them certainly
was the Colonel, as his father had prophesied - and they asked him
an infinity of questions, chiefly about the woman who looked after
him, all of which Kim answered truthfully. They did not seem to
think the woman a good guardian.

After all, this was the newest of his experiences. Sooner or later,
if he chose, he could escape into great, grey, formless India,
beyond tents and padres and colonels. Meantime, if the Sahibs were
to be impressed, he would do his best to impress them. He too was a
white man.

After much talk that he could not comprehend, they handed him over
to a sergeant, who had strict instructions not to let him escape.
The Regiment would go on to Umballa, and Kim would be sent up,
partly at the expense of the Lodge and in part by subscription, to
a place called Sanawar.

'It's miraculous past all whooping, Colonel,' said Father Victor,
when he had talked without a break for ten minutes. 'His Buddhist
friend has levanted after taking my name and address. I can't quite
make out whether he'll pay for the boy's education or whether he is
preparing some sort of witchcraft on his own account.' Then to Kim:
'You'll live to be grateful to your friend the Red Bull yet. We'll
make a man of you at Sanawar - even at the price o' making you a
Protestant.'

'Certainly - most certainly,' said Bennett.

'But you will not go to Sanawar,' said Kim.

'But we will go to Sanawar, little man. That's the order of the
Commander-in-Chief, who's a trifle more important than O'Hara's
son.'

'You will not go to Sanawar. You will go to thee War.'

There was a shout of laughter from the full tent.

'When you know your own Regiment a trifle better you won't confuse
the line of march with line of battle, Kim. We hope to go to "thee
War" sometime.'

'Oah, I know all thatt.' Kim drew his bow again at a venture. If
they were not going to the war, at least they did not know what he
knew of the talk in the veranda at Umballa.

'I know you are not at thee war now; but I tell you that as soon as
you get to Umballa you will be sent to the war - the new war. It is
a war of eight thousand men, besides the guns.'

'That's explicit. D'you add prophecy to your other gifts? Take him
along, sergeant. Take up a suit for him from the Drums, an' take
care he doesn't slip through your fingers. Who says the age of
miracles is gone by? I think I'll go to bed. My poor mind's
weakening.'

At the far end of the camp, silent as a wild animal, an hour later
sat Kim, newly washed all over, in a horrible stuff suit that
rasped his arms and legs.

'A most amazin' young bird,' said the sergeant. 'He turns up in
charge of a yellow-headed buck-Brahmin priest, with his father's
Lodge certificates round his neck, talkin' God knows what all of a
red bull. The buck-Brahmin evaporates without explanations, an' the
bhoy sets cross-legged on the Chaplain's bed prophesyin' bloody war
to the men at large. Injia's a wild land for a God-fearin' man.
I'll just tie his leg to the tent-pole in case he'll go through the
roof What did ye say about the war?'

'Eight thousand men, besides guns,' said Kim. 'Very soon you will
see.'

'You're a consolin' little imp. Lie down between the Drums an' go
to bye-bye. Those two boys will watch your slumbers.'

Chapter 6

Now I remember comrades -
Old playmates on new seas -
Whenas we traded orpiment
Among the savages.
Ten thousand leagues to southward,
And thirty years removed -
They knew not noble Valdez,
But me they knew and loved.

Song of Diego Valdez.

Very early in the morning the white tents came down and disappeared
as the Mavericks took a side-road to Umballa. It did not skirt the
resting-place, and Kim, trudging beside a baggage-cart under fire
of comments from soldiers' wives, was not so confident as
overnight. He discovered that he was closely watched - Father
Victor on the one side, and Mr Bennett on the other.

In the forenoon the column checked. A camel-orderly handed the
Colonel a letter. He read it, and spoke to a Major. Half a mile in
the rear, Kim heard a hoarse and joyful clamour rolling down on him
through the thick dust. Then someone beat him on the back, crying:
'Tell us how ye knew, ye little limb of Satan? Father dear, see if
ye can make him tell.'

A pony ranged alongside, and he was hauled on to the priest's
saddlebow.

'Now, my son, your prophecy of last night has come true. Our orders
are to entrain at Umballa for the Front tomorrow.'

'What is thatt?' said Kim, for 'front' and 'entrain' were newish
words to him.

'We are going to "thee War," as you called it.'

'Of course you are going to thee War. I said last night.'

'Ye did; but, Powers o' Darkness, how did ye know?'

Kim's eyes sparkled. He shut his lips, nodded his head, and looked
unspeakable things. The Chaplain moved on through the dust, and
privates, sergeants, and subalterns called one another's attention
to the boy. The Colonel, at the head of the column, stared at him
curiously. 'It was probably some bazar rumour.' he said; 'but even
then -' He referred to the paper in his hand. 'Hang it all, the
thing was only decided within the last forty-eight hours.'

Are there many more like you in India?' said Father Victor, 'or are
you by way o' being a lusus naturae?'

'Now I have told you,' said the boy, 'will you let me go back to my
old man? If he has not stayed with that woman from Kulu, I am
afraid he will die.'

'By what I saw of him he's as well able to take care of himself as
you. No. Ye've brought us luck, an' we're goin' to make a man of
you. I'll take ye back to your baggage-cart and ye'll come to me
this evening.'

For the rest of the day Kim found himself an object of
distinguished consideration among a few hundred white men. The
story of his appearance in camp, the discovery of his parentage,
and his prophecy, had lost nothing in the telling. A big, shapeless
white woman on a pile of bedding asked him mysteriously whether he
thought her husband would come back from the war. Kim reflected
gravely, and said that he would, and the woman gave him food. In
many respects, this big procession that played music at intervals -
this crowd that talked and laughed so easily - resembled a festival
in Lahore city. So far, there was no sign of hard work, and he
resolved to lend the spectacle his patronage. At evening there came
out to meet them bands of music, and played the Mavericks into camp
near Umballa railway station. That was an interesting night. Men of
other regiments came to visit the Mavericks. The Mavericks went
visiting on their own account. Their pickets hurried forth to bring
them back, met pickets of strange regiments on the same duty; and,
after a while, the bugles blew madly for more pickets with officers
to control the tumult. The Mavericks had a reputation for
liveliness to live up to. But they fell in on the platform next
morning in perfect shape and condition; and Kim, left behind with
the sick, women, and boys, found himself shouting farewells
excitedly as the trains drew away. Life as a Sahib was amusing so
far; but he touched it with a cautious hand. Then they marched him
back in charge of a drummer-boy to empty, lime-washed barracks,
whose floors were covered with rubbish and string and paper, and
whose ceilings gave back his lonely footfall. Native-fashion, he
curled himself up on a stripped cot and went to sleep. An angry man
stumped down the veranda, woke him up, and said he was a
schoolmaster. This was enough for Kim, and he retired into his
shell. He could just puzzle out the various English Police notices
in Lahore city, because they affected his comfort; and among the
many guests of the woman who looked after him had been a queer
German who painted scenery for the Parsee travelling theatre. He
told Kim that he had been 'on the barricades in 'Forty-eight,' and
therefore - at least that was how it struck Kim - he would teach
the boy to write in return for food. Kim had been kicked as far as
single letters, but did not think well of them.

'I do not know anything. Go away!' said Kim, scenting evil.
Hereupon the man caught him by the ear, dragged him to a room in a
far-off wing where a dozen drummer-boys were sitting on forms, and
told him to be still if he could do nothing else. This he managed
very successfully. The man explained something or other with white
lines on a black board for at least half an hour, and Kim continued
his interrupted nap. He much disapproved of the present aspect of
affairs, for this was the very school and discipline he had spent
two-thirds of his young life in avoiding. Suddenly a beautiful idea
occurred to him, and he wondered that he had not thought of it
before.

The man dismissed them, and first to spring through the veranda
into the open sunshine was Kim.

' 'Ere, you! 'Alt! Stop!' said a high voice at his heels. 'I've got
to look after you. My orders are not to let you out of my sight.
Where are you goin'?'

It was the drummer-boy who had been hanging round him all the
forenoon - a fat and freckled person of about fourteen, and Kim
loathed him from the soles of his boots to his cap-ribbons.

'To the bazar - to get sweets - for you,' said Kim, after thought.

'Well, the bazar's out o' bounds. If we go there we'll get a
dressing-down. You come back.'

'How near can we go?' Kim did not know what bounds meant, but he
wished to be polite - for the present.

' 'Ow near? 'Ow far, you mean! We can go as far as that tree down
the road.'

'Then I will go there.'

'All right. I ain't goin'. It's too 'ot. I can watch you from 'ere.
It's no good your runnin' away. If you did, they'd spot you by your
clothes. That's regimental stuff you're wearin'. There ain't a
picket in Umballa wouldn't 'ead you back quicker than you started
out.'

This did not impress Kim as much as the knowledge that his raiment
would tire him out if he tried to run. He slouched to the tree at
the corner of a bare road leading towards the bazar, and eyed the
natives passing. Most of them were barrack-servants of the lowest
caste. Kim hailed a sweeper, who promptly retorted with a piece of
unnecessary insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy
could not follow it. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim put
his fettered soul into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse
somebody in the tongue he knew best. 'And now, go to the nearest
letter-writer in the bazar and tell him to come here. I would write
a letter.'

'But - but what manner of white man's son art thou to need a bazar
letter-writer? Is there not a schoolmaster in the barracks?'

'Ay; and Hell is full of the same sort. Do my order, you - you Od!
Thy mother was married under a basket! Servant of Lal Beg' (Kim
knew the God of the sweepers), 'run on my business or we will talk
again.'

The sweeper shuffled off in haste. 'There is a white boy by the
barracks waiting under a tree who is not a white boy,' he stammered
to the first bazar letter-writer he came across. 'He needs thee.'

'Will he pay?' said the spruce scribe, gathering up his desk
and pens and sealing-wax all in order.

'I do not know. He is not like other boys. Go and see. It is
well worth.'

Kim danced with impatience when the slim young Kayeth hove in
sight. As soon as his voice could carry he cursed him volubly.

'First I will take my pay,' the letter-writer said. 'Bad words have
made the price higher. But who art thou, dressed in that fashion,
to speak in this fashion?'

'Aha! That is in the letter which thou shalt write. Never was such
a tale. But I am in no haste. Another writer will serve me. Umballa
city is as full of them as is Lahore.'

'Four annas,' said the writer, sitting down and spreading his cloth
in the shade of a deserted barrack-wing.

Mechanically Kim squatted beside him squatted as only the natives
can - in spite of the abominable clinging trousers.

The writer regarded him sideways.

'That is the price to ask of Sahibs,' said Kim. 'Now fix me a true
one.'

'An anna and a half. How do I know, having written the letter, that
thou wilt not run away?'

I must not go beyond this tree, and there is also the stamp to be
considered.'

'I get no commission on the price of the stamp. Once more, what
manner of white boy art thou?'

'That shall be said in the letter, which is to Mahbub Ali, the
horse-dealer in the Kashmir Serai, at Lahore. He is my friend.'

'Wonder on wonder!' murmured the letter-writer, dipping a reed in
the inkstand. 'To be written in Hindi?'

'Assuredly. To Mahbub Ali then. Begin! I have come down with the
old man as far as Umballa in the train. At Umballa I carried the
news of the bay mare's pedigree.' After what he had seen in the
garden, he was not going to write of white stallions.

'Slower a little. What has a bay mare to do . . . Is it Mahbub Ali,
the great dealer?'

'Who else? I have been in his service. Take more ink. Again. As the
order was, so I did it. We then went on foot towards Benares, but
on the third day we found a certain regiment. Is that down?'

'Ay, pulton,''' murmured the writer, all ears.

'I went into their camp and was caught, and by means of the charm
about my neck, which thou kno west, it was established that I was
the son of some man in the regiment: according to the prophecy of
the Red Bull, which thou knowest was common talk of our bazar.' Kim
waited for this shaft to sink into the letter-writer's heart,
cleared his throat, and continued: 'A priest clothed me and gave me
a new name . . . One priest, however, was a fool. The clothes are
very heavy, but I am a Sahib and my heart is heavy too. They send
me to a school and beat me. I do not like the air and water here.
Come then and help me, Mahbub Ali, or send me some money, for I
have not sufficient to pay the writer who writes this.

' "Who writes this." It is my own fault that I was tricked. Thou
art as clever as Husain Bux that forged the Treasury stamps at
Nucklao. But what a tale! What a tale! Is it true by any chance?'

'It does not profit to tell lies to Mahbub Ali. It is better to
help his friends by lending them a stamp. When the money comes I
will repay.'

The writer grunted doubtfully, but took a stamp out of his desk,
sealed the letter, handed it over to Kim, and departed. Mahbub
Ali's was a name of power in Umballa.

'That is the way to win a good account with the Gods,' Kim shouted
after him.

'Pay me twice over when the money comes,' the man cried over his
shoulder.

'What was you bukkin' to that nigger about?' said the drummer-boy
when Kim returned to the veranda. 'I was watch-in' you.'

'I was only talkin' to him.'

'You talk the same as a nigger, don't you?'

'No-ah! No-ah! I onlee speak a little. What shall we do now?'

'The bugles'll go for dinner in arf a minute. My Gawd! I wish I'd
gone up to the Front with the Regiment. It's awful doin' nothin'
but school down 'ere. Don't you 'ate it?'

'Oah yess!'

I'd run away if I knew where to go to, but, as the men say, in this
bloomin' Injia you're only a prisoner at large. You can't desert
without bein' took back at once. I'm fair sick of it.'

'You have been in Be - England?'

'W'y, I only come out last troopin' season with my mother. I should
think I 'ave been in England. What a ignorant little beggar you
are! You was brought up in the gutter, wasn't you?'

'Oah yess. Tell me something about England. My father he came from
there.'

Though he would not say so, Kim of course disbelieved every word
the drummer-boy spoke about the Liverpool suburb which was his
England. It passed the heavy time till dinner - a most unappetizing
meal served to the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a
barrack-room. But that he had written to Mahbub Ali, Kim would have
been almost depressed. The indifference of native crowds he was
used to; but this strong loneliness among white men preyed on him.
He was grateful when, in the course of the afternoon, a big soldier
took him over to Father Victor, who lived in another wing across
another dusty parade-ground. The priest was reading an English
letter written in purple ink. He looked at Kim more curiously than
ever.

'An' how do you like it, my son, as far as you've gone? Not much,
eh? It must be hard - very hard on a wild animal. Listen now. I've
an amazin' epistle from your friend.'

'Where is he? Is he well? Oah! If he knows to write me letters, it
is all right.'

'You're fond of him then?'

'Of course I am fond of him. He was fond of me.'

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